We’re all just fumbling in the dark — for a heart of hearts
October 2008
The Archives
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10.26.08a person jumping on a levee crushing beans
I had a lot of fun this weekend. On Sunday, Hector and I went out to Anthem at the Blue Lamp. It was dead since we got there rather early, so we drank out of my trunk for a while and talked. After a bit, Mario arrived so we went in. The music really sucked, the only things I could decipher from the continuous untz-untz-untz-untz was MGMT and a heavily distorted bit of Simian Mobile Disco. We left the Blue Lamp and drove over to join Mario’s friend Lupita at this this trashy costume party at Silk.
The party wasn’t my scene, but everyone was so trashed that having a good time was contagious. After we had our fill of Little Red Riding Hoes, I drove us to the Kasbah where we got snacks and sobered up.
The next day I went over to Christen’s house for breakfast. She didn’t have any stuff that was quite ready to eat, so we decided to go grocery shopping. It ended up being this amusing quest carried out via light rail where we visited Trader Joe’s, the co-op, and Safeway. We had lunch at the co-op, and headed back to her place to walk her dog and hang out.
For some reason, we both really wanted to go out and do something, so we posted this quixotic ad on Craigslist asking for people that wanted to drive to San Francisco. A few minutes later, Christen called Chelsea, and she invited us to come over to her place.
We had some wine and ended up taking crazy pictures with this pink wig. The whole time, we were making drawings for scenes for this movie Christen and I are making…some of the unintended interpretations were hilarious.
After that, we went and walked around midtown, eventually settling on a stoop in front of the Merc. We talked about the future for a long time.
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10.26.08africa (you chew my mind up)
So, the Africa thing.
I’m going on a press trip for my magazine to Africa sometime in February. It’s going to be 10 days, I believe, and we will be in the Victoria Falls area during that time.
I couldn’t find any of my friends that had a thousand dollars to spend on the airfare to come with, so I mentioned on here that I was looking for someone to go with. Amanda’s sister Sarah e-mailed me and we set up all the details (replete with politically incorrect jokes about colonialism), and we are going to have this awesome African experience.
I felt trepidation, then excitement, then more trepidation. I’m going to have to get antimalarial drugs somehow before I leave…I’m not looking forward to dealing with the medical establishment.
I never thought I would ever go to Africa, but I here I go anyway. I have no idea how to feel about it other than vaguely excited.
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10.24.08
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10.24.08California
Visitors to my blog in California this month, bigger circles mean more visitors.
San Diego: 271 visits from September 23 to October 23.
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10.24.08just call me Icarus
Last night was the kind of unintended party that you always hope for.
I originally only planned to meet Mario and Hector at Tupelo (coffee shop) for a few hours after work, then I was going to go home. We looked at a bunch of pictures on MySpace on Mario’s laptop, then headed to Crepe Escape for Hector to get food.
We were about to go home, when someone suggested that we go out for drinks. It was only about 10 p.m. at that point, so I suggested that we go to the Streets of London pub. We were going to go to Old Tavern, but Google Maps couldn’t find it.
We got Stellas and played foosball (Hector was the champ), then we settled into a table at the back of the outdoor area.
One pitcher.
We’re talking about how insane Madrigalskylark is, start reading his E.D. article from my N95 way too loudly, and I invite Taggart. He shows up with two of his friends and sits near us.
two pitchers,
and I meet Chelsea in the back room and she says hi, but I’m too fucked up to think of anything interesting to say, so I just give her an enthusiastic hello and tell her that I’m really drunk.
three pitchers.
This is where it gets kinda bad…I remember making out with someone, then puking…a few times. Feeling like the biggest faggot ever puking while wearing my scarf.
Spent the rest of the morning feeling incredibly sick and sleeping at Mario’s house. I realized I had this big stream of puke down the arm of my Presets shirt. I heard Mario’s straight roomate jerking it in the other room, and by the end of the morning had both puke and cum on my Presets shirt…which was oddly fitting.
Mario got back from work at 1 p.m. and we went to 7-11 across the street for me to get Pepto-Bismol. It was a really beautiful, warm day with that light little breeze that reminds you how wonderfully warm it is without being too hot. (I love Sacramento weather.) After that, we went and got tacos at this place on Folsom.
I drove home, used my voice recognition to bang out my geography homework (I LOVE that class, by the way), then headed to AR. I had a few minutes to talk to my aunt Kathy about my grandma. They went to the cancer doctor appointment today, and apparently Grammie is still refusing treatment, although that decision changes from moment to moment. She isn’t coherent enough to make these decisions, but my dad refuses to step in (he has power of attorney). I don’t envy his job. Deciding whether your mother lives a longer and possibly incredibly painful life or a shorter and way more painful death. I don’t think he’s even thought it through that far.
He says he will support any decision that she makes, but he’s not here often enough to understand that Grammie is nearly completely incoherent. (He is here enough to realize it, if he wasn’t shielding himself from the truth.) She thinks that she’s going to die in three months, which is not a figure that any of the doctors said. During the appointment she wanted to see what my dad wanted her to do, and thought that he was at home (he wasn’t). It’s really frustrating, she wants someone to make a decision so that she can blame him when it backfires in some way she doesn’t like.
For the time being, she’s getting her wish. Orrin has her signed up to put this valve in her neck so that they can inject the chemotherapy drugs directly (apparently it makes your veins clot so they can’t go prospecting for veins every time they have to dose her.
At this point, it’s like a movie. I have no power to stop anything or change anything. I am going to call my dad tomorrow and tell him (for the thousandth time) the situation here. He never believes me. Sometimes I wonder if he just wants her money.
Money is all this family can offer. They have no love to give. And my grandma is one of the reasons for this.
Kathleen needs to move in here, because my dad won’t stay here in more than two days. He says it’s because he has nothing to do here, but there are tons of things to do. The reality is that he doesn’t want to be confronted by his mother’s condition. Or, if it really is that he’s bored, shame on him. A failure as a father and a failure as a son.
My dad and I have an okay relationship, mostly because we have nearly identical political philosophies, but when I really needed him a lot of the times when I was growing up, he just wasn’t there. I can never forgive him for certain things, like when I was deathly ill and he wouldn’t take me to the doctor, but the very next day when his horse was looking strange and he spent $1000 to take it into the vet.
I can’t imagine what it was like to grow up with Grammie as a mother. I kind of understand what my uncle John went through now. I still want to have some kind of funeral for him. It’s like he never existed. Maybe it’s just a California thing to have weak family ties.
It’s nearly 1:30, I should get some sleep. I was so nauseous I wasn’t able to eat until about 6 p.m. today, so I still feel really hungry even though I had a good meal when I got home.